Siemens PLCSIM’s New Interface in TIA Portal V18

Community How-to-Tutorials
#1

Simulation has become a cornerstone in the industrial landscape, enabling engineers and developers to refine designs, test processes, and troubleshoot without the need for physical prototypes. The ability to emulate real-world scenarios in a controlled environment significantly reduces costs and time-to-market for various industrial projects. In this context, Siemens has unveiled a transformative advancement in its TIA Portal version 18, introducing a revamped interface for PLCSIM. This new interface combines the strengths of PLCSIM Advanced with a fresh, intuitive visual interface.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.solisplc.com/tutorials/siemens-plcsims-new-interface-in-tia-portal-v18
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#2

Hi! I think there’s a serious mistake in this article on the topic of TCP/IP communication. The article states:
“You can define the communication mode (PLCSIM internal softbus or TCP/IP over a virtual ethernet adapter). This feature was only present in PLCSIM Advanced; now, you can perform external communications (In TCP/IP mode) directly using the regular PLCSIM.”

The SIMATIC Engineering Tools S7-PLCSIM V18 SP1 online help says otherwise:
“TCP/IP (single adapter): This mode allows for local communication to a physical communication network over a single network adapter. Only S7-PLCSIM Advanced simulation instances can use this mode.”
I don’t have a TIA V18 installation right now but I tend to believe the original Siemens source.

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#3

Hi! I’m the tutorial’s writer. Thank you so much for your attention to my tutorial and your comment!
You are absolutely right… Oopsie :sweat_smile: I think I was running a PLCSIM Advanced instance without noticing during my tests and somehow thought this was possible. Should’ve double checked with the documentation…
I did all the corrections and added a whole section where I explain how the PLCSIM Advanced features work. This will be updated ASAP.
I apologize for the mistake and for any incovenience it may have caused. I’ll make sure to do better next time. And thanks again for your comment, I wouldn’t have noticed my mistake without it.

Regards.

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#4

Hi! Thank you for checking and the quick response - it’s really appreciated!

I really hope that SIEMENS one day makes it possible to have TCP/IP communication with the in-build PLCSIM. For our company’s process control system this would be a gread feature and would save us a lot of license costs. Also wouldn’t need to set up dozens of dedicated VMs just for the PLCSIM Advanced any more.

I’m not really a big fan of Schneider Electric’s Control Expert which we also must use sometimes, but at least their simulator is installed with the IDE and can communicate to other machines in the network.

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#5

You’re welcome!

Yeah you are right but hopefully there are free third party solutions if you only need to simulate communications such as NeToPLCsim which is a free software that adds TCP/IP communication to PLCSim. Having a first party solution would have been better but it’s still better than nothing!

On another hand, PLCSim Advanced offers more than just communication abilities since it tries to emulate an actual PLC as closely as possible. Buying its licenses does not go to waste! it ensures that the simulated behaviour will match the physical one as closely as it could.